Price of a GALLON in the US = £1.50 (max)
Price of a GALLON in the UK = £4.80 (ish)

Any ideas why ? because I haven't other than the fear of losing an election. Maybe the only way to get fair play is to put the fear of losing an election into our Govt. Sadly we are adept at taking these things on the chin, something has to change.

Price of a GALLON in the US = £1.50 (max)
Price of a GALLON in the UK = £4.80 (ish)

Any ideas why ? because I haven't other than the fear of losing an election. Maybe the only way to get fair play is to put the fear of losing an election into our Govt. Sadly we are adept at taking these things on the chin, something has to change.

Click to expand...

My bolding.

Yep. TAX. In the UK the vast majority of the money you pay for petrol/diesel goes to the treasury.

Oh. the reason that fuel goes up imediately when oil price rises is because the companies are now paying more for it and pass the cost on. The reason it takes time for oil price drops to hit the forecourt is because they paid that higher price for that fuel. They are corporations. Being a corporation makes them legally bound to earn as much as they possibly can for their shareholders. Bugger the environment, customers and workers the legal obligation is to maximise profits for shareholders. BTW, you may unknowingly be one (shareholder).

the price of a barrel today is actually at the rate from 6 months ago. I.e if the market reaches $101 per barrel tomorrow it will take 6 months to come into effect.

Oil and it's by-products are pretty cheap when you consider the costs involved in drilling, production and refining. Compare a litre of petrol (minus tax) with a litre of coke or bottled water.
Our problem is the robbing barstewards that add so much Tax onto the price of fuel.